Deviation Actions

Four winged thieves

Published: Dec 6, 2012

16 Comments

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Some Microraptors dwelling in the mountains of Liaoning where the warm of the spring has started to melt all the snow, revealing possible new food sources.

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Comments16

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beautiful

For some reason, ever since the color description was released, I keep thinking of Microraptors as cretaceous grackles. This piece captures the energy quite well, I think.

Zimices

Dec 8, 2012

Muy bueno, especialmente la idea de poner dinosaurios oscuros revoloteando en un ambiente con nieve

T-PEKC

Dec 7, 2012

Nice work! I agree with what Emily said, the texture on the head and neck is very realistic. I think that the body and tail feather texture need more work but that could be just me. Also, don't you think that the tail is too thin? Not sure if it's intentional or not, but the wings of the two microraptors are strcutured in different way. The one on the left follows the new study of wing evolution, while the right one has the traditional bird-like wing.

Durbed

Dec 7, 2012

Thanks! the one on the right has actually the same wing structure but maybe due to the -rather rudimentary- motion blur that I applied the covert layers are hard to notice. I agree with you regarding the tail of the Microraptor standing still, it should be a tad thicker like the one of his gliding comrade (but still, Microraptor tails are fairly thin looking at the fossil). The body texture has been bugging me since I posted this, it looked quite better as I was working on it. Sigh* but I think its still better than my last Microraptor.

T-PEKC

Dec 7, 2012

Well, overall it's pretty good reconstruction of Microraptor, definitely one of the better ones. I think the problem with body texture is that the shading is too strong which makes the feathers look more like scales. Maybe if the light was softer then they wouldn't look like pangoline scales - [link] . I'm still not convinced that the motion blur makes covert layers hard to notice. What I meant is that the two individuals have different number of covert layers. I took the liberty to edit your picture in order to show you that the left Microraptor has about 9 feather layers, with 5 layers of big coverts, while the right one poses (as far as I can see) 6 feather layers, of which only two consist of big coverts - [link] .

Durbed

Dec 7, 2012

Ah, I see. The top extra coverts in the left one are actually the 2 layers of secondaries folding over the primaries . There's 4 layers of primaries + coverts in each animal + the minor layers of small feathers that you see on the right microraptor.

Anyway, I edited the picture and made some changes after what you said. I think they look bit more like proper feathers now but you might be right, I went too far with the shading when trying to make them stick out.

T-PEKC

Dec 7, 2012

I'm sorry man, it's just me not paying enough attention. You're right, the wings are fine. I just didn't noticed that the extra layers are actually due to the wing being folded. For some reason I've seen them as the wing is extended, which is not the case here. Once again, sorry, I feel really stupid right now.

They look better know. I think some photos of birds could give you an idea for textures in your future works.

Durbed

Dec 7, 2012

Ha, don't feel bad, man. Its mostly my fault since the angle of the bottom secondaries layer is almost the same as the primaries, so I can see how it could easily deceive someone.

Check out the feathers now, I think I more or less achieved that texture effect. I'll keep working on it though.

Thanks for pointing out what I was doing wrong. Sometimes I get so obsessed with the small details and contrast that I lose sight of the bigger picture...

T-PEKC

Dec 7, 2012

Getting better and better in my opinion. Now the feathers look much more natural. Sometimes I also lose sense of how details fit in the whole picture, but it's easier to notice problems when the artwork is not yours. You know, because of the more objective point of view. I'm glad if my comments were of any help.